This was a good day.
I woke up later than I wanted to, but it turned out not mattering anyway. I thought about doing the Black Taxi tour this morning, but decided not to, and it's for the best. What I did do was walk all the way over to the Titanic Experience--which is a long fuckin way away, let me tell you--and saw the King Albert whatever clock on the way. I want to read a book on Albert. He's everywhere and I don't know why. But the important part: the Titanic Experience tickets were sold out for the next three days. That's insane right? I had no idea it was that fuckin popular. I'd walked all over the city and didn't see as many tourists as I saw there. It's like they're all going there just for that. But yeah. I just have to go back. I can just make it a day trip or something. It only takes 2.5 hours to get there from Dublin, so what the hell. Then I can do a black cab tour as well. The cool thing about the Black Taxi tours is that they are all about the history of The Troubles and they take you over to the Protestant/Loyalist side of town to see the murals and the sights of the bombings and all that.
On the way back to the Europa bus station in the city center I came across a "global market." You had to pay £3 to get in, but alright. It was like any street fair kind of thing you would find at home--vendors are local businesses and the food is cheap and there was a local band playing in this big dark tent. It was cool though. I ate Thai food because it struck my fancy right then. I also bought myself a ring with a Celtic interlay design thing. I asked the guy twice if it's really silver and he said yeah it won't tarnish or turn my finger green, so he better not have been lying to me.
The bus ride out here to Derry is beautiful. The Ulsterbus line is different than Bus Eireann one in that the Ulsterbus line uses normal city buses for their long distance runs too. So, I got to sit at the front on the top deck of this bus and it was brilliant--the huge windows and all. And it was beautiful day. Just perfect.
Got a bit lost finding the hostel again. Don't know what my problem is--if I wrote the directions wrong or if they're wrong on the site or what, but they aren't right how I've them. Anyways, the Derry Jazz festival is this weekends-ends tomorrow on the bank holiday. There's a square downtown that you've to walk through to get here to the hostel and they had a few different tents up with some bands playing. It's great to hear jazz again. I miss it.
After I found the hostel I decided to just chill here for a while. The woman that runs the place--it's an indepenedent one--is really cool. She made me some tea and starred a bunch of places on this free map that I should go see. The internet is free here, though there's only one computer. That's one irrelevent reason that I'm on at 2am rather than earlier.
The better--far more relevent reason--that I'm on this late is because I met an Australian girl here who asked me if I wanted to go out to the pubs to hear some music with her. Absolutely. She's very cool. She's here alone like me. I don't know what's she's doing really, but while she's here she's working at the hostel in exchange for a bed and the facilities. That's awesome. If I could plan a backpacking trip like that I would love it. Basically free accommodation if you put in a few hours here and there checking in people and cleaning up beds and the like. So cool.
We went to a couple pubs--the first few were really packed and the bands weren't the greatest. We settled at one and I didn't read the name as we walked in or out, but it was fun. Pretty decent craic. The band wasn't fantastic, but they weren't bad by any means. And we kind of just laughed at all the weird people--super weird guys--dancing and falling all over each other. It was weird, but fun. Right at the very end, in like the last 15 minutes the place was open this guy asked me where I was from and then we were talking about Seattle a bit, so this girl overheard and then she started talking to me about Seattle. She was there with her brother and apparently her parents did a trip of the west coast years ago and they loved Seattle and she was telling me all this stuff and she's just totally locked/pissed/wasted, but she's grand. She was lovely. She shook my hand three times and was introducing to random people I don't think she even knew.
Tomorrow I'm going to do the wall--Derry is a walled city, the Tower Museum which is all about the Troubles, and maybe a walking tour. Not entirely sure. This trip has been mostly winging it so far and it's turned out beautifully, so I think I'll just keep at it.
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